Franklin D. Roosevelt

The New Deal

1933
In the spring of 1933, we faced a crisis... We
were against revolution. And, therefore, we waged war
against those conditions which make revolution--against
the inequalites and resentments that breed them.
FDR
American
The vigor of our history comes, largely, from the fact
that , as a comparatively young nation we have gone
fearlessly ahead doing things that were never
done before.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
The American farmer, living on his own land, remains
our ideal of self-reliance and spiritual balance--the
source from which the reservoirs of the nation's
strength are constantly renewed.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"The saving grace of America lies in the fact that the
overwhelming majority of Americans are possessed of
two great qualities --
a sense of humor and a sense of proportion.
FDR
American Creed
"The creed of our democracy is that liberty is acquired and kept
by men and women who are strong and self-reliant,
and possessed of such wisdom as God gives mankind --
men and women who are just, and understanding, and generous to others --
men and women who are capable of disciplining themselves.
For they are the rulers and they must rule themselves."
-- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
(1882-1945), 32nd US President
10/28/44
Cheating
"We know that there are chislers.
At the bottom of every case of criticism and obstruction
we have found some selfish interest, some private
axe to grind."
1936
Commerce Clause
"[The commerce clause was written] in the horse-and-buggy age ...
since that time … we have developed an entirely different philosophy. ...
We are interdependent, we are tied in together. And the hope has been
that we could, through a period of years, interpret the interstate
commerce clause of the Constitution in the light of these new things that
have come to the country. It has been our hope that under the interstate
commerce clause we could recognize by legislation and by judicial
decision that a harmful practice in one section of the country could be
prevented on the theory that it was doing harm to another section of the
country. That was why the Congress for a good many years, and most
lawyers, have had the thought that in drafting legislation we could depend
on an interpretation that would enlarge the constitutional meaning of
interstate commerce to include not only those matters of direct interstate
commerce, but also those matters which indirectly affect interstate commerce."
Franklin D. Roosevelt
(1882-1945), 32nd US President
Source: May 31, 1935 press conference, responding to a Supreme Court
decision that defined the commerce clause narrowly enough to interfere
with his regulation of farm products
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Franklin.Roosevelt.Quote.522D
Communists
"I do not believe in communism any more than you do,
but there is nothing wrong with the communists in this country.
Several of the best friends I have are Communists."
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Source: The New York Times, May 6th, 1933
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Franklin.Roosevelt.Quote.1C5F
Constitution
"You will find no justification in any of the
language of the Constitution for the delay in the
reforms which the mass of all Americans now
demand."
1939
Conservative
"I am reminded of four definitions: a radical is a man
with both feet planted firmly in the air.
A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs
who, however, has never learned to walk forward.
A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards.
A Liberal is a man who uses his legs and his hands
at the behest the command--of his head."
Court Packing
In effect, four justices ruled that the right
under a private contract to exact a pound of flesh
was more sacred than the main objectives of the
Constitution to establish an enduring nation.
What is my proposal? It is simply this: whenever
a judge or justice of any federal court has reached
the age of seventy and does not avail himself of
the opportunity to retire on a pension, a new
member shall be appointed by the president
then in office, with the approval, as required by
the Constitution, of the Senate of the United States.
Danger
The Nazi danger to our Western world has long
ceased to be a mere possibility. The danger is
here now--not only from a military enemy but
from an enemy of all law, all liberty,
all morality, all religion.
Defense
"We build and defend not for our generation
alone. We defend the foundations laid by our
fathers. We build a life for generations yet unborn.
We defend and we build a way of life,
not for Americans lone, but for all mankind."
Fireside Chat, May 1940
Declaration Of War (Dec 7th 1941)
"Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941 - a date which will live in
infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and
deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of
the Empire of Japan. The United States was at
peace with that nation and, at the solicitation
of Japan, was still in conversation with the
government and its emperor looking toward
the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.
Indeed, after Japanese air squadrons
had commenced bombing in Oahu, the
Japanese ambassador to the United States
and his colleagues delivered to the Secretary
of State a formal reply to a recent
American message. While this reply stated
that it seemed useless to continue the
existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained
no threat or hint of war or armed attack. It will
be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from
Japan makes it obvious that the attack was
deliberately planned many days or even
weeks ago.
During the intervening time, the Japanese
government has deliberately sought to
deceive the United States by false statements
and expressions of hope for continued peace.
The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian
islands has caused severe damage to
American naval and military forces. Very many
American lives have been lost. In addition,
American ships have been reported torpedoed
on the high seas between San Francisco and
Honolulu. Yesterday, the Japanese
government also launched an attack against
Malaya.
Last night, Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.
Last night, Japanese forces attacked Guam.
Last night, Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.
Last night, the Japanese attacked Wake Island.
This morning, the Japanese attacked Midway Island.
Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive
extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of
yesterday speak for themselves. The people of the
United States have already formed their opinions and
well understand the implications to the very life
and safety of our nation. As commander in chief of
the Army and Navy, I have directed that all measures
be taken for our defense. Always will we remember the
character of the onslaught against us. No matter how
long it may take us to overcome this premeditated
invasion, the American people in their righteous
might will win through to absolute victory. I believe
I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people
when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves
to the uttermost, but will make very certain that this
form of treachery shall never endanger us again.
Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that
our people, our territory and our interests are in
grave danger. With confidence in our armed forces -
with the unbounding determination of our people -
we will gain the inevitable triumph -
so help us God. I ask that the Congress declare that
since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan
on Sunday, Dec. 7, a state of war has existed
between the United States and
the Japanese empire.
Democracy
"Not only our future economic soundness
but the very soundness of our democratic
instutions depends on the determination of
our Goverment to give employment to idle men."
April, 1938
The constant free flow of communication among
us--enabling the free interchange of ideas--forms the
very bloodstream of our nation. It keeps the mind and
the body of our democracy eternally vital, eternally
young.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
I respect the aristocracy of learning; I deplore the
plutocracy of wealth; but thank God for the
democracy of the heart.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
8-18-1937
Economy
But while they prate of economic laws, men and women
are starving. We must lay hold of the fact that
economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by
human beings.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Accepting the presidential nomination, 1932
True individual freedom cannot exist without economic
security and independence. People who are humgry and
out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are
made.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Message to Congress, 1944
We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad
morals; we know now that it is bad economics.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Second Inaugural 1937
Destiny
There is a mysterious cycle in human events.
To some generations much is given. Of other generations
much is expected. This generation of Americans has a
redezvous with destiny.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
6-27-1936
Dictatorship
"...the ultimate failures of dictatorship cost humanity
far more than any temporary failures of democracy."
1937
Environment
The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
2-26-1937
The throwing out of balance of the resources of nature
throws out of balance also the lives of men.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Farmer
"Are we going to take the hands of the federal government completely off
any effort to adjust the growing of national crops, and go right straight
back to the old principle that every farmer is a lord of his own farm
and can do anything he wants, raise anything, any old time, in any
quantity, and sell any time he wants?"
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Source: May 31, 1935 press conference, responding to a Supreme Court
decision that defined the commerce clause narrowly enough to interfere
with his regulation of farm products
Fear
Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we
have to fear is fear itself-- nameless, unreasoning,
unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to
convert retreat into advance.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
3-4-1933
Financial Element
"The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial
element in the large centers has owned the government of the U.S. since
the days of Andrew Jackson."
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt
(1882-1945), 32nd US President
November 21, 1933
Source: in a letter written to Colonel E. Mandell House
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Franklin.Roosevelt.Quote.76BD
Fires
"If the fires of freedom and civil liberties burn low in
other lands, they must be made brighter in our own. If in
other lands the press and books and literature of all kinds
are censored, we must redouble our efforts here to keep them
free. If in other lands the eternal truths of the past are
threatened by intolerance, we must provide a safe place for
their perception."
Franklin D. Roosevelt
(1882-1945), 32nd US President
Source: Speech, 30 June 1938
Global Affairs
No man can tame a tiger into a kitten by stroking it.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
Arsenal of Democracy speech, 12-29-1940
There is solidarity, an interdependence about the modern
world, both technically and morally, which makes it
impossible for any nation completely to isolate itself
from economic and political upheavals in the rest of
the world, especially when such upheavals appear to be
spreading and not declining.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
10-5-1937, Chicago
We cannot escape danger, or the fear of danger, by
crawling into bed and pulling the covers over our heads.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
12-29-1940
You must master at the outset a simple but unalterable
fact in modern foreign relations. When peace has been
broken anywhere, peace of all countries everwhere is
in danger.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
9-4-1039
Government
Government can err; Presidents do make mistakes, but
the immortal Dante tells us that divine justice weighs
the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the
warm-hearted in different scales. Better the occasional
faults of a Government that lives in a spirit of charity
than the consistent omissions of a Government frozen in
the ice of its own indifference.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
6-27-1936
The object of government is the welfare of the people.
The liberty of the people to carry on their business
should not be abridged unless the larger interests of
the many are concerned. When the interests of the many
are concerned the interests of the few must yield.
It is the purpose of the government to see not only that
the legitimate interests of the few are protected but
that the welfare and the rights of the many are conserved.
These are the principles which we must remember in any
consideration of the question. This, I take it,
is sound government--not politics. Those are the
essential basic conditions under which government can
be of service.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
9-21-1932
Happiness
Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money.
It lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of
creative effort.
First Inaugural Address
Human Community
"We have learned that we cannot live alone.
We cannot live alone at peace. We have learned that
our own well-being is dependent on the well-being of
other nations far away. We have learned to be citizens
of the world, members of the human community."
Knowledge
"Knowledge -- that is, education in its true sense -- is our best
protection against unreasoning prejudice and panic-making fear,
whether engendered by special interest, illiberal minorities,
or panic-stricken leaders."
Franklin D. Roosevelt
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Franklin.Roosevelt.Quote.BA07
Labor
Employers and employees alike have learned that in
union there is strengh, that a coordination of individual
effort means an elimination of waste, a bettering of
living conditions, and is, in fact, the father of
prosperity.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
Address to Woman's Trade Union League
6-8-1929
How could God create the world in six days? No unions.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
It is to the real advantage of every producer, every
manufacturer and every merchant to cooperate in the
improvement of working conditions, because the best
customer of American industry is the well paid worker.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Cleveland Oh, 10-16-1936
No business which depends for existence on paying less
than living wages to its workers has any right to
continue in this country. By living wages I mean more
than a bare subsistence level--I mean the wages of
decent living.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Organizations of workers, wisely led, temperate in
their demands and conciliatory in their attitude, make
not for industrial strife, but for industrial peace.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Leadership
In every dark hour of our national life a leadership
of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding
and support of the people themselfs, which is
essential to victory.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
First Inaugural
Liberty
"The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government
strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and
a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain
its sovereign control over the government."
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Source:http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Franklin.Roosevelt.Quote.61B6
"We would rather die on our feet than live on our
knees."
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1939
We believe that the only whole man is a free man.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Me Too Republican
Let me warn the nation against the smooth evasion which says: 'Of course
we believe all these things. We believe in Social Security; we believe in
work for the unemployed; we believe in saving homes. Cross our hearts
and hope to die, we believe in all these things; but we do not like the way
the present administration is doing them. Just turn them over to us. We
will do all of them; we will do more of them; we will do them better;
and best of all, the doing of them will not cost anybody anything.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Source:http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/10/the_birth_of_the
_metoo_conserv.html
Neighbor
"In the field of world policy I would dedicate this
nation to the policy of the good neighbor."
1933
Ninety Percent
"Ninety percent of our people live on salary
or wages, ten percent on profits alone....People in
this country whose income is less than two
thousand a year, buy more than two-thirds of all
goods sold....If these people are not assured of
an income, the goods produced cannot be sold."
Patriotism
Lives of nations are determined, not by the count of
years, but by the lifetime of the human spirit.
The life of a man is three score years and ten,
a little more, a little less. But the life of a
nation is the fullness of it's will to live.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Third Inaugural
Peace
We are going to win the war, and we are going to
win the peace that follows.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
12-9-1942 Address to the American People
Political Control
"It will never be possible for any lenght
of time for any group of the American people,
either by reason of wealth or learning or
inheritance or economic power, to retain any
mandate, and permanent authority to arrogate
to itself the political control of the American
public life."
June 1936
Politics
"In politics, nothing happens by accident.
If it happened, you can bet it was planned that way."
Franklin D. Roosevelt
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Franklin.Roosevelt.Quote.7EFE
Poverty
The test of our progress is not whether we add more to
the abundance of those who have too much...it is
whether we provide enough for those who have
too little.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Progress and Change
Wise and prudent men--intelligent conservatives--have
long known that in a changing world, worthy institutions
can be conserved only by adjusting them to the
changing time.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Preparedness
"We have had the lesson before us over
and over again-- nations that were not ready
and were unable to get ready found themselves
overrun by the enemy."
Message to Congress, 1940
Race and Ethnicity
They came to us speaking many tongues--but a single
language, the universal language of human aspiration.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
10-28-1936 address commemorating the Statue of Liberty
Republicians
"Most Republican leaders have bitterly fought and blocked the
forward surge of average men and women in their pursuit of
happiness. Let us not be deluded that overnight those leaders
have suddenly become the friends of average men and women."
FDR 1940
Source:http://www.cs.umb.edu/jfklibrary/e081280.htm
"I shall give the Republician orators some more
opportunities to say 'Me, too.' "
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Campaign speech 1944
"Now there is an old and somewhat lugubrious adage
that says: 'Never speak of rope in the house of a man
who has been hanged.' In the same way, if I were a
Republican leader speaking to a mixed audience, the
last word in the whole dictionary that I think I would
use is the word 'Depression.' "
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Campaign speech 1944
Sears, Roebuck Catalog
"Sears, Roebuck catalog."
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, answer to the question of
what single book he'd put in the hands of a
Russian Communist
Stealing
"A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car,
but if he has a university education he may steal the whole railroad."
Franklin D. Roosevelt
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Franklin.Roosevelt.Quote.0A93
Survive
I tell the American people solemnly that the
United States will never survive as a happy and
fertile oasis of liberty surrounded by a cruel
desert of dictatorship"
Taxes
"Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to
ability to pay. That is the only American principle."
FDR
Tomorrow
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be
our doubts of today, so let us move forward with strong
and active faith.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Speech prepared for a Jefferson Day Dinner, But
undelivered. He died the day before the event.
We have always held to the hope, the belief, the
conviction, that there is a better life, a better
world, beyond the horizon.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Try Something
"The country needs, the country demands, bold persistent
experimentation...
Above all, try something,"
Roosevelt said in 1932.
Undelivered Speech
If civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science
of human relationships--the ability of all people of all kinds,
to live together and work together in the same world, at peace.
Franklin Roosevelt
Source:Undelivered speech for Apr 13, 1945
Eleanor:The Years Alone, pp210
Unions
I believe now, as I have all my life, in the right of workers to
join unions and to protect their unions.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Source:Radio Address, May 2, 1943
It is one of the characteristics of a free and democratic nation
that it have a free and independent labor unions.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Source:Speech to Teamsters' Union, Sep 11, 1940
Unity
We must begin the great task that is before us by
abandoning once and for all the illusion that we can
ever again isolate ourselfs from the rest of humanity.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
When a country is at war we want Congressmen, regardless
of party, to back up the government of the United States.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , 1944
Wall Street
"Today we stand committed to the proposition that freedom is no half-and-half affair.
If the average citizen is guaranteed equal opportunity in the polling place, he must
have equal opportunity in the market place. These economic royalists complain that
we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that
we seek to take away their power."
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Source:1936 Democratic convention
War
"The American people will not relish the
idea of any American citizen growing rich and
fat in an emergency of blood and slaughter
and human suffering."
As men do not live on bread alone, they do not fight
by armaments alone. Those who man our defenses and
those behind them who build our defense must have the
stamina and the courage which come from an unshakable
belief in the manner of life which they are defending.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
1-6-1941
Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill has a hundred ideas a day, of which
four are good.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Youth
We cannot always build the future for our youth,
but we can build our youth for the future.
University of Penn, 1941
"Flaming youth has become a flaming
question. And youth comes to us wanting to
know what we may propose to do about a
society that hurts so many of them."
4/1936